Pick the heavy, serious, scholarly, religious-sounding word "preordain" when you want to say that some god or other authority figure has planned things out in advance.

You could say that this god preordains things, as in "Do we have free will, or has God preordained our lives?"

But more often we use the passive voice, nudging the god out of the grammatical spotlight and just saying that things "have been preordained."

For example, you might talk about a preordained time or place, a preordained event, a preordained plan or future, or a preordained success or failure. Or, you might talk about how things seem preordained, or how people believe or wonder if things are preordained.

In both examples below, "preordained" sounds ironic, even ridiculous. Sometimes, even with plenty of context, I can't tell whether a writer is being sincere or ironic when they use the word "preordain." That's something to watch out for: are you sure your reader will know whether you're sincere or just joshing?

"Some time ago I rejected magic in all its forms. This rejection was a gift from your grandparents, who never tried to console me with ideas of an afterlife and were skeptical of preordained American glory. In accepting both the chaos of history and the fact of my total end, I was freed to truly consider how I wished to live."
   — Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, 2015

"There was no room for chance in this world; all occurrences were preordained, and were caused either by the ancestral or evil spirits. Because my navel was an 'innie' and not an 'outie,' and because I was left-handed and not right-handed, I was destined to become the sage in the family, and someday would do something great."
  — Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy, 1986

has this page helped you understand "preordain"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "preordain" without saying "predestine" or "decree in advance."

try it out:

As he recapped an episode of Game of Thrones, Jeremy Egner noted that "the histories of kingdoms... can seem preordained in retrospect."

Although he was talking about an epic fantasy TV show, he could have been talking about real history, too. At least, I think so.

Talk about whether you agree or disagree that history often seems "preordained" when we look back on it.

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "CLICKBAIT THIS!"

Summon your creativity and dismiss your sense of decency as you invent a clickbaity description: one that's urgent, exaggerated, ungrammatical, conspiratorial, utterly false, emotionally abrasive, vaguely revelatory, full of feigned shock, and/or bloated with capital letters, question marks, exclamation points, and/or emojis. Get in there and be shameless.

If you're sufficiently disgusted with your clickbait, share it with a friend and see if they can guess its subject. I'll also share mine with you to see if you can guess it.

Clickbait this today: A college major or degree of your choice.

Try guessing my choice of a college major or degree: Stuck In A Mailroom, He Made Millions, Annihilated Industry — AGAIN

Scroll all the way down for the answer to mine.

review this word:

1. A near opposite of PREORDAINED could be

A. TRIM or SITUATED.
B. WILD or REBELLIOUS.
C. SPONTANEOUS or ARBITRARY.

2. In his book Geeks, Jon Katz wrote: "For some of my classmates, college was preordained. It was _____."

A. a welcoming community
B. always understood that they would go
C. a way to achieve lucrative positions in technology industries

Answers to the review questions: 1. C 2. B From the game: Business Administration.

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.